In general, prior art arrangements for forming or erecting containers, such as cardboard cartons from flat blanks have relied upon hand delivery of the blanks to a magazine which forms part of an erecting machine. The magazine, in which the blanks or flats are stacked includes means for delivering the top blank of the stack to the erection apparatus and also includes elevator means for indexing the stack upward, one flat thickness at a time, as the flats are removed from the top of the stack.
To achieve a practical production rate, it is desirable to place a large stack of flats on the elevator in the magazine. However, such stacks can be quite heavy, thereby requiring the operator to lift such a heavy weight, or else to feed the flats into the magazine as several smaller stacks. In either case, the operator quickly becomes fatigued, and he also runs the risk of injury if he attempts to lift stacks that are too heavy. Further, the production rate is diminished by the operator's inability to place a complete stack upon the elevator in one movement. Once the indexing upward of the magazine and elevator has begun, it is no longer feasible to place flats on the elevator, and, in general, it is necessary that the operator wait until the elevator returns to its lowest, or magazine loading position. The operator then must load the magazine piecemeal while production is at a standstill and operation can only resume after he has finished loading.
It is a desideratum that any interruption of the production of finished carton be of very short duration, and, further, that the operator be spared, for reasons of safety and reduction of fatigue, the labor of loading the flats into the magazine by hand.